pyenv fails with : ModuleNotFoundError: No module named '_ctypes' error

Question

I have already seen https://bugs.python.org/issue34036 but it did not help.

I am trying to instal python using the followin command

 pyenv install 3.7.0

But it throws the following error

If the version you need is missing, try upgrading pyenv:

Downloading Python-3.7.0.tar.xz... -> https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.7.0/Python-3.7.0.tar.xz Installing Python-3.7.0...

BUILD FAILED (Ubuntu 16.04 using python-build 20180424)

Inspect or clean up the working tree at /tmp/python-build.20181018113151.14218 Results logged to /tmp/python-build.20181018113151.14218.log

Last 10 log lines: File "/tmp/tmpecnjnct9/pip-10.0.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl/pip/_internal/init.py", line 42, in

File "/tmp/tmpecnjnct9/pip-10.0.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl/pip/_internal/cmdoptions.py", line 16, in

File "/tmp/tmpecnjnct9/pip-10.0.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl/pip/_internal/index.py", line 25, in

File "/tmp/tmpecnjnct9/pip-10.0.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl/pip/_internal/download.py", line 39, in

File "/tmp/tmpecnjnct9/pip-10.0.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl/pip/_internal/utils/glibc.py", line 3, in

File "/tmp/python-build.20181018113151.14218/Python-3.7.0/Lib/ctypes/init.py", line 7, in

from _ctypes import Union, Structure, Array ModuleNotFoundError: No module named '_ctypes'

Makefile:1122: recipe for target 'install' failed

make: *** [install] Error 1

For this and related issues, you'll find it best to first meet the general pyenv build prerequisites documented at github.com/pyenv/pyenv/wiki/Common-build-problems and note the troubleshooting instructions there. — nealmcb
– nealmcb, Commented Oct 2, 2019 at 23:15

Yuval Pruss · Accepted Answer · 2019-09-23 15:14:23Z

38

Install the libffi development package:

sudo apt-get install libffi-dev

and try again.

edited Sep 23, 2019 at 15:14

Yuval Pruss

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answered Dec 9, 2018 at 21:26

SwKEmb

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2 Comments

xApple Over a year ago

I have the same problem as OP, but do not have administrator rights, and cannot run sudo commands. What is the easiest solution in that case?

SwKEmb Over a year ago

manually download the libffi-dev ubuntu package and extract the package, then define environment variable LIBRARY_PATH to point to the library folder which you just extracted and try to build

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